Beyond Transactions: HCM with Engagement at the Core

Employee Engagement

Why Employee Engagement Matters

Business leaders rank employee engagement as a top concern in survey after survey because they know how critical it is to increasing productivity, meeting business objectives, and lowering absenteeism. There is a strong correlation between engaged employees and higher profits.

Engaged employees also equate to higher retention. A workplace with a high level of employee engagement reduces voluntary turnover by as much as 65 percent, according to the Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey.

Consider a company with 5,000 employees that has only 30 percent of its workforce engaged — that’s 3,500 people who are some combination of absent, not productive, not concerned with customer satisfaction, and probably unconcerned with the success or profits of the company.

Employee Engagement

What it is

Reflection of a company’s bottom line, operations, culture, etc., and its ability to sustain those things

Employee understanding of and connection to business goals

Perception of value to the company

Employees who feel motivated

What it’s not

About happiness

A human resources initiative

Isolated to a single project or initiative

Source: Brandon Hall Group. “High-performance Onboarding.”

HR Thought Leaders on Employee Engagement

Employee engagement has dominated HR technology discussions for several years. Josh Bersin, for example, has touted the need to shift from systems of record to systems of engagement in order to move the model away from top-down HR technology to an HR platform that allows employees to make decisions for themselves.* We all know easy-to-use, engaging websites and social media platforms are a must for customer applications. Why would it be any different for your employees? HR software should be an intuitive, unified employee experience. Imagine how engaged employees could be if they didn’t have to navigate clunky HR systems. The benefits of a more engaging system could be tremendous — lower training costs, increased technology adoption rates, and more-productive employees.